A homeless man who randomly attacked people with a screwdriver in Belmont Shore has been sentenced to 7 years in state prison.
The unprovoked attacks at a popular park and shopping district shook the neighborhood on May 30, 2023. They injured four people — including a grandfather holding his 2-year-old grandson and a man waiting outside a restaurant while applying for a job — and ended when a police officer shot and wounded the suspect, Mario Najara, as he tried to force his way into a home on East Livingston Drive.
Najara, 33, was sentenced Monday after pleading guilty to two counts of assault with a deadly weapon. As a result of his plea, the court dismissed two additional counts of assault with a deadly weapon and one count each of robbery, resisting a peace officer and making criminal threats. If he’d been convicted on all counts, he could have faced between 11 and 70 years in prison, according to prosecutors.
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Police said Najara was homeless at the time of his crimes. Court records show he was born in Hawthorne but had spent more than 10 years living in Tijuana, Mexico, before returning to the Los Angeles area shortly before the incident…